Canuckonomist

She replies, and I quote "Unfortunately, there has been no movement yet, and no end to the hold at the moment. I apologize for not having more information for you." Cheers, Canuck EDIT: At this rate, we could be the year that gets royally screwed. That said, there are 4 months until December...

Phalene, I e-mailed her last friday, but she'll be out of the office until tomorrow (Monday) so I imagine she'll respond tomorrow, and I'll post my update then. Canuck

It always is. It's like the initiation process into what is going to be an all-around painful first year. But if Ruqu is teaching Micro, you'll have a great time. Ditto if Amy is teaching macro. I'm just a bit in love with that woman.

Check that. I passed. Now I all I care about is this.

Yes. Yes I am. I'm holding out that we might hear something tomorrow, should those key people be back. Otherwise, I'll e-mail next friday, to see where we're at. At the moment, I'm more 'nail-bitey' about the imminent comprehensives results -but of course, still worried about this, too.

Slow Bureaucracy is slow. That is all.

D'oh!

I told her I'd leave her alone until september And now for your daily piece of kitteh wisdom

I see you lurking there, SpaceJump... Why are you here during such an uneventful week?

I'm away for 5 days, and all the fun stuff happens. Nice work SpaceJump. That will put my mind at ease for the next week.

Update from MSP: "There have been no changes at this time. Yes, there is a "hold", it is for budgetary reasons, meaning that we need to see exactly where we are ($$-wise) before we can offer more awards. It amounts to the same thing though, we need more declines to release the funds, before we can send new offers. It isn't terribly helpful information, unfortunately. I understand that it is a painfully slow process and frustrating, and can only remind you that we awarded Alternate funding all the way to December of last year (for the previous competition)." She's so helpful, I'm glad I get to deal with her. Canuck

E-mail sent. Hopefully we'll hear from her today. She's usually quick to respond (within minutes of 9am) but seeing as it's 10:30am and nothing yet, perhaps she's looking into that theory. Not to get anyone's hopes up, of course. Maybe she's just busy -or sick, but hopefully not sick. Canuck

I'll be in contact with Michelle St-Pierre on monday morning, and I'll see if she says the same thing. Canuck

I'm almost an expert at waiting now. If I could get paid to do it, I could probably do it professionally.

Doesn't sound that bad to me. Sounds like a variant on what we've all heard -nothing has moved yet. From what I've heard, they were still waiting to hear back from everyone, so who knows what's going on. Putting a 'hold' on more awards doesn't necessarily mean that no more will be offered. It just means we will all be waiting a heck of a lot longer than we were expecting to.

At this rate, I'm unlikely to apply again if only to save myself the stress. This whole process has been a bit trying, and I'm getting sick of waiting. My feelings are that I'll need a break from it. Not to mention that SSHRC doesn't make a huge difference on the end of my overall funding package, after clawbacks.

I'm sure everyone was thinking this to be the case, but of course, no movement on the waitlists. Perhaps next week, or the one after that, or perhaps, maybe, the one after that... Low expectations are the key to a stress-free waiting period. Canuck

So that looks like that might be it for the day, I'm guessing. Monday's a Civic Holiday (THE Civic Holiday, in fact,) so the offices will be closed. I'll resume my weekly contact with Michelle on Tuesday, and we'll see if anything has changed then. Have a great weekend, all. Canuck

Ah. I see what you did there. Good one!

Yeah, that would not be cool.

Good point, SpaceJump, but your timeline is a tad off. The initial awardees had until mid-june-ish to reply. Then there was the secret deadline of July 7th, which was the date through which they would try to contact awardees to see why they haven't responded. Unofficially, however, they will keep trying until a short time after that to see if they can still reach those who haven't responded, so that could delay everything even longer. I want to get news before August 10th, as that is the date for my comp retake, and anything I can get to boost my standing with the grading committee would be excellent. Not only that, but SSHRC funding for me means they just might keep other students around, too, if my funding is then freed up -so it's good for everyone. Anyhow, Michelle did also tell me that the wait could be through December, as that was the case in previous years for some waitlisters (students not choosing to continue in the program past first term), so the wait could be quite long indeed. No hopes, no expectations, just pleasant surprises.

I agree with the bureaucracy theory, though I expect that it's not the final e-mail that will take so long, as it will be the final decision to send those e-mails. That's usually what takes so long, in my experience with administration. No one is willing to make the call without at least half a dozen cosigners. This is indeed one of the longer waits for results that I've encountered, but keep in mind, when we're academics, the publishing process can take a year, easy. This is practice, I guess. Canuck

Haven't asked. She told me that she can't release any results until they're ready to say things 'officially', so I imagine they're still waiting to clear up what the second round is going to be. It could take a while, so we all need to hang tight. Canuck P.S: Nice to know everyone is still lurking religiously.

Michelle is back in the office today. She e-mailed me first thing this morning to let me know that nothing has changed so far. Canuck